Shell Reference

Complete list of shell commands, grouped by subsystem. All commands are available in both the terminal REPL (pyos) and the web UI (pyos-web).

A live terminal dashboard is also available via pyos-tui (requires the [tui] extra — see TUI Dashboard).

Commands can be piped: ls / | grep txt | wc

General

Command	Description
`ps`	Show running processes
`run prog [p]`	Run a built-in program with optional priority
`run /path`	Load and execute a binary file from the filesystem
`compile name`	Build a demo program into `/bin`
`compile list`	List available demo programs
`hexdump path`	Show an annotated hex dump of a binary file
`kill pid`	Terminate a process by PID
`fork pid`	Fork a process (create a child copy)
`wait pid`	Wait for any child to terminate and collect its exit code
`waitpid p c`	Wait for a specific child (c) of parent (p) to terminate
`pstree`	Show the process tree hierarchy
`threads pid`	List threads of a process
`top`	System status dashboard
`signal pid sig`	Send a signal (SIGTERM, SIGKILL, SIGUSR1, etc.)
`handle pid act`	Register a signal handler (log, ignore)

Command	Description
`scheduler`	Show or switch scheduling policy (fcfs, rr, priority, aging, mlfq, cfs)
`scheduler boost`	Reset MLFQ levels (anti-starvation)
`scheduler balance`	Rebalance processes across CPUs
`cpu`	Show per-CPU status and scheduling info
`taskset pid [cpus]`	Show or set CPU affinity for a process
`benchmark`	Run scheduling benchmarks (run, demo)
`tick [N]`	Advance the system clock by N ticks (default 1)

Command	Description
`mmap path`	Memory-map a file
`munmap addr`	Unmap a memory-mapped region
`msync addr`	Sync a shared mapping
`slabcreate name size`	Create a slab cache
`slaballoc name`	Allocate from a slab cache
`slabfree name addr`	Free a slab allocation
`slabinfo`	Show slab allocator statistics
`swap`	Show swap space status (policy, usage, page faults)
`swap policy P`	Change replacement policy (fifo, lru, clock)
`swap demo`	Exercise the pager — force page faults and show stats

Command	Description
`ls [path]`	List directory contents
`mkdir path`	Create a directory
`touch path`	Create an empty file
`write path content`	Write content to a file
`cat path`	Read file contents
`rm path`	Remove a file or directory
`ln target link`	Create hard or symbolic links
`readlink path`	Read a symlink target
`stat path`	Show file metadata (type, size, links)
`open path`	Open a file and get a file descriptor
`close fd`	Close a file descriptor
`readfd fd`	Read from a file descriptor
`writefd fd content`	Write to a file descriptor
`seek fd pos`	Reposition a file descriptor's offset
`lsfd`	List open file descriptors
`journal cmd`	Manage journaling (status, checkpoint, recover, crash)
`proc`	/proc virtual filesystem demo

Command	Description
`whoami`	Show the current user
`adduser name`	Create a new user
`su uid`	Switch to another user
`chmod path mode`	Set file permissions (e.g. `rwxr-xr--`)
`chown path uid [gid]`	Change file owner and/or group
`getfacl path`	Show permissions and ACL entries for a file
`setfacl path spec`	Add an ACL entry (e.g. `user:1:rwx` or `group:2:r-x`)
`groups`	Show current user's group memberships
`groups list`	List all groups and their members
`groups add name`	Create a new group
`groups adduser uid gid`	Add a user to a group
`groups removeuser uid gid`	Remove a user from a group

Command	Description
`env`	List environment variables
`export K=V`	Set an environment variable
`unset key`	Remove an environment variable

Command	Description
`jobs`	List background jobs
`bg pid`	Move a process to background
`fg job_id`	Bring a job to foreground
`waitjob id`	Wait for a background job to complete

Command	Description
`devices`	List registered devices
`devread dev`	Read from a device
`devwrite dev data`	Write to a device
`fb`	Show framebuffer info (dimensions, status)
`fb render`	Display the current framebuffer contents
`fb pixel x y c`	Set a character at position (x, y)
`fb text x y msg`	Draw text starting at (x, y)
`fb rect x1 y1 x2 y2 c`	Fill a rectangle with a character
`fb clear`	Clear the framebuffer
`fb demo`	Draw a demo pattern with borders and text

Command	Description
`socket cmd`	Socket operations (create, bind, listen, connect, accept, send, recv, close, list)
`dns cmd`	DNS operations (register, lookup, remove, list, flush, demo)
`http cmd`	HTTP demo (end-to-end request/response over sockets)
`tcp cmd`	TCP connections (listen, connect, send, recv, close, info, list, demo)

Command	Description
`container create name`	Create a new container with isolated namespaces
`container list`	List all containers (name, state, processes, fs root)
`container exec name prog`	Run a program inside a container
`container info name`	Show container namespace details
`container destroy name`	Destroy a container and clean up
`container demo`	Run a container demonstration

Command	Description
`cluster create`	Initialize a cluster with this kernel
`cluster add`	Add a new kernel to the cluster
`cluster remove id`	Remove a kernel from the cluster
`cluster list`	List all kernels (ID, state, pending packets)
`cluster send id msg`	Send a message to another kernel
`cluster recv`	Receive the next message
`cluster ping id`	Check if a kernel is reachable
`cluster dns id host`	Look up a hostname on another kernel
`cluster demo`	Run a cluster demonstration

Command	Description
`mutex cmd`	Manage mutexes (create, list)
`semaphore cmd`	Manage semaphores (create, list)
`rwlock cmd`	Manage reader-writer locks (create, list)
`resources`	Show resource allocation status
`deadlock`	Run deadlock detection
`pi cmd`	Priority inheritance (demo, status)
`ordering cmd`	Resource ordering (register, status, mode, violations, demo)
`shm cmd`	Shared memory (create, attach, detach, write, read, list, destroy, demo)

Command	Description
`interrupt cmd`	Manage interrupts (list, mask, unmask)
`timer cmd`	Manage the timer (info, set)

Command	Description
`log`	Show kernel log entries
`dmesg`	Show kernel boot log
`perf`	Show performance metrics
`strace cmd`	Syscall tracing (on, off, show, clear, demo)
`dashboard cmd`	System dashboard (cpu, memory, processes, fs)

Command	Description
`learn [topic]`	Interactive tutorials (processes, memory, filesystem, shell, scheduling)